Harvest festival always catches me by surprise.  By October the blackberries at the end of the garden are a distant memory, and supermarkets make it all too easy to forget the yearly variations of our food.  But to mark harvest festival is not only to remind ourselves of the changing seasons and our dependence upon a fragile natural world.  Our human harvests are not only of food and produce, important as they are, but also of our work and creativity, of blossoming friendships, of all the ways in which human beings grow and flourish in the world.  Harvest-time is an invitation to remember all the good things that we receive from God and from each other, not only physical sustenance, but friendship, love, and all the fruits of creativity, human and divine.

Yet no harvest is ever the work of our hands alone, and this season brings home to us how far we rely upon others, in cycles and systems of interdependence that can be so easily obscured.   And it challenges us to reflect on what those systems really look like, and how far our own choices and actions confirm or challenge the practices they promote.  Where the world so often prefers efficiency and individual gain, our harvest service gives a glimpse of an alternative model, of gift and community. At harvest we give thanks and praise for God’s gifts, and we commit to sharing them with each other.  As a sign of that commitment, food items and clothing can be brought for the Gatehouse (details in the notice below).   For through our worship and our offering we set all that we have within God’s kingdom, where God’s abundant creation can be enjoyed by all.